


Feasgar

by uumuu



Series: Linn Ùr [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Father/Son Incest, Languages, M/M, Sharing Body Heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Studying a particular variant of Sindarin, Fëanor and Curufin make a couple interesting discoveries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feasgar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangacrack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangacrack/gifts).



> Many thanks to amyfortuna for beta reading this.

“...so you only retain the i-affection plurals in a limited number of words, most of them short. Interesting,” Fëanor remarked, going over the long list of words arranged in columns by plural type. “I wonder where the -n plurals come from.”

“The adjectival ending?” suggested Curufin, without looking up from the sheet he was filling with more words, closely stacked together, the vertical strokes of the tengwar criss-crossing and nearly obliterating each other. 

The tribe's language proved more singular than they had anticipated, and they had to make very judicious use of pens, ink and paper, even though they had brought their usual supply with them. Fëanor had rushed down from Himring as soon as a message had arrived from Amrod and Amras, reporting that a particular tribe of wandering Sindar was crossing the forest, bound south-west. Together they had ridden speedily through Himlad, skirting Nan Elmoth on its eastern side, and crossing the Celon just to the south of the forest. 

“Or maybe some external influence. You said you travelled through vast regions of Ennorath, right?” he asked, glancing up for a moment at his interlocutors in what was basic courtesy.

The two Sindar, brothers, watched the two _dubhghoill_ with enduring puzzlement – and a veneer of annoyance, after a whole afternoon spent dictating after a whole afternoon spent dictating word after word, and their accompanying plurals, every time Curufin tapped the nib of his pen on the sheet.

“Yes. We have travelled to the southernmost regions of what you call Ennorath and spent a long time in the south-east,” one of the two, Ruairidh – the older, replied.

“That could explain it. Or maybe it's simply a completely different branch of evolution,” Fëanor said thoughtfully, looking at one, then the other, as if in their faces he could find the answer to a quandary which didn't have the least significance to them. He turned towards Curufin, who remained bent over his writing. “We still have _too few_ samples to track the evolution of all branches of Nelyarin,” he said, impatiently. “Who knows how many tribes remain hidden here in Beleriand, and how many more live across the mountains!”

“Would you mind telling us about your travels?” Curufin asked, seemingly heedless of his father's frustration.

“No -” Ruairidh began to say.

“Tomorrow,” Fëanor brusquely interrupted, “I want to finish these lists today.”

Eachann, the younger brother, bent forward, propping his elbow on his right knee and supporting his head with his hand. “You said you want to...examine our tongue, putting our words down like that?” he asked, lifting his chin in the direction of the full sheets Fëanor held in his left hand, where the sounds and meanings of his daily life had been turned into an alien intersection of lines and whorls.

“Exactly. Your language has an amazingly... _different_ vocabulary. So many words which don't exist in any other variant of Sindarin I have come across so far, or in any of the Amanyar languages, and a diverging phonology too. Palatals, and more frequent than in Minyarin even. Plenty of nasalised sounds, but no dental fricatives...it is incredibly fascinating.”

“Fascinating,” Eachann echoed, in a dry tone which made it clear that he didn't fully trust Fëanor's justification. “You do not want to...steal them?”

Fëanor cracked a feeble cheeky grin. “I am no sorcerer.”

Curufin was distracted by Eachann's question enough to jumble the word Ruairidh had just enunciated. “Could you repeat that?” he was forced to ask.

“Tea-ch-dai-rea-chd,” Ruairidh spelled out again.

Curufin nodded and wrote the word. He had adapted the full mode of the tengwar to the writing system the tribe sometimes used in inscriptions – rudimentary, and ambiguous in places, but functional and revealing an instinctive grasp of the phonology. Its most noteworthy characteristic was the marking of the consonants as 'slender' or 'broad' by flanking them with the corresponding slender or broad vowels, a fundamental distinction in the language. Any subtler spelling issues would have to wait until they were back in their own lands.

They had arrived at the encampment just before the noon hour and had been allowed to pursue their research because the tribe leaders saw no harm in it, and because the tribe was still packing provisions before moving on towards the river Sirion and from there to the coast. So long as they didn't interfere with their tasks and kept out of the encampment proper they could ask all the questions they wanted.

Ruairidh and Eachann had volunteered to help them, partly out of an interest that had nothing to do with things linguistic. It was a far more mundane interest. Fëanor the Terrible, whose short-lived renown in Beleriand had turned to infamy after the truth about Losgar and what had preceded it at Alqualondë had been divulged, who had a hideous burn scar that covered most of the left side of his face, who was reputed to be mad and incapable of anything but destruction, sat there opposite them on a fallen tree trunk, dressed in dusty and mud-stained travelling clothes, balancing an open ink-well on his right thigh, and asked them question after question with the enthusiasm and bluntness of a small child eagerly listening to their first fairy tale.

“...are you not afraid of wandering on your own this lightheartedly?” Eachann pointedly asked, sitting up straight again, but keeping his pale green eyes fixed on Fëanor. “We are not too far from the borders of Doriath.”

“I can defend myself,” Fëanor said with a shrug, and the air of someone who is as used to the ire of fellow Elves as to the hatred of the Enemy – and as unmindful. “And from what I have heard you are not on particularly good terms with the Iathrim either.”

Eachann said nothing in reply, which was confirmation enough. 

Ruairidh adjusted the flat cap he wore to shield his eyes against the glare of the sun, which had begun to descend towards the western horizon. “...one of the words you wrote down is built on your name.”

“Not only your name,” Eachann hastened to add.

Fëanor's head snapped up. Curufin stopped his feverish scribbling and looked up as well. Expectation danced in his powerfully bright mottled-grey eyes, the same as his father's.

“Evening – Feasgar.”

“Oh,” was all Fëanor said. He had just learnt that the word _fear_ didn't mean 'spirit' anymore in the tribe's language, but simply male person; yet he could see no connection between that and a still relatively new phenomenon such as sundown. He nodded for Ruairidh to go on. 

“It is made up with fëa and the second part of Losgar,” Ruairidh explained. “It was actually _'Fëanor at Losgar'_ at first, but it was too long to say, so it was shortened to feasgar.”

“Because, we happened not to be too far from the Firth of Drengist when you burnt the ships. The conflagration blazed, then died down, like the sun now does when it sinks in the West,” Eachann further clarified, loath to let his words be misinterpreted.

Ruairidh nodded. “And there's the word _losgadh_ which means, well...burning.”

“Say that again?” Curufin demanded, picking up his nib again and dipping its point in the ink well.

“L-o-s-g-a-dh.”

“Well...that's a very peculiar...coincidence, and a most -”

“We don't believe in coincidences,” Eachann firmly said. “Everything happens because it must.”

Fëanor lifted both eyebrows and shifted where he sat, nearly causing the inkwell to drop. Father and son both hastened to catch it and their hands met around the small earthenware pot. A conspiratorial look sparked between them, which didn't escape the brothers' notice, but passed before they could comment on it.

“Then, even my...coming here,” Fëanor was saying a moment later, raising his head towards Eachann again.

“Apparently.”

Ruairidh cleared his throat. “We will have to go back to the encampment, in a short while.”

“All right.” Fëanor lowered his head, taking his gaze off of Eachann, and looked his lists over again. “We did a lot today, already. Thank you.”

Eachann's shoulders slumped. He had tensed up at some point, without even realising it. “Do you need anything for the night? Something to eat?” 

“No, thank you, we brought our own provisions.”

*

As soon as Ruairidh and Eachann left, ascending the gentle slope that led to their temporary home, Fëanor and Curufin unpacked their single bedroll – they didn't bother to burden themselves with two whenever they travelled on their own – and lighted a campfire. They ate a bit of coimas, once again sitting knee to knee on the tree trunk, their mantles wrapped in layers around them both, for though it was spring, the nights were still chilly. 

The Sindar were having a feast around a large bonfire, and the notes of singing and carousing wafted down from the knoll along with the biting night breeze. Curufin was trying to write down some of the verses of one of the songs, after realising they were repeated at regular intervals, while Fëanor annotated the music for Maglor's perusal in the light of a lamp they had set on the trunk next to them. 

Curufin reviewed the lines he had tucked in a corner of an already filled-out sheet one last time as the song died down. He would ask the brothers to correct them in the morning. “I'm quite certain they were repeating r-ii-v-ɪ-ɲ.”

Fëanor nodded. “And that something is or happened _there_...that nasal is unmistakable!” He smiled, and Curufin smiled back. “Are you tired?”

“A little.”

“Then let's lie down, my beloved,” Fëanor cooed, setting the pad and ink aside, and drawing Curufin closer to himself. He placed a kiss on each of Curufin's cheeks, on his forehead and finally his mouth. 

A thin layer of rime had already set on the sheepskin covering of their bedding when they slipped into it, after Fëanor had put more wood into the fire, and Curufin had screened the lamp. Fëanor wrapped himself around his son, Curufin all too happy to be enveloped by his father like that. 

“Will we stay until they leave?” 

“If it's not too long,” Fëanor said, placing his arm over the upper part of Curufin's chest. 

“I can't wait to show Cáno the lists. I'm sure he will be thrilled both with the sound of the language in itself and with the songs.”

Fëanor smiled wistfully. He would have wanted to share his enthusiasm with Maglor there and then too, but no more than two of them at a time could leave their lands. Besides, he had named Maglor aptly; Maglor was a much more capable military leader than he was. “Yes,” he muttered, burying his face in the crook of Curufin's neck, “he's sure to.” His hand clenched into a fist. 

“We will find a way to win,” Curufin said, easily guessing his father's train of thought. He closed his eyes, and focused exclusively on Fëanor's heat, his heartbeat, the easeful solidity of his body.

“We will.”

**Author's Note:**

> As is widely known, Tolkien based Sindarin on Welsh, but didn't like (Scottish) Gaelic instead, which I for one love, so I thought it'd be fun to use it in a story.
> 
> Feasgar, losgadh, teachdaireachd (message, tidings), fear, ribhinn (i.e. r-ii-v-ɪ-ɲ, maiden) are all actual Scottish Gaelic words. Dubhghoill means 'black foreigners', and was used for Danes (as opposed to fionnghoill 'fair foreigners', which was used for Norwegians; more [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doyle) if you're curious). Eachann and Ruairidh are existing Scottish Gaelic names.


End file.
